Jack Cohen's Blog about Israel and other daily amusements

PBDS or PBS

We should start calling the campaign to demonize Israel what it is, the Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign – PBDS. If we drop divestment, it becomes the Palestinian-BS movement, precisely. Because that’s what it is, a campaign by the Palestinians and their loyal supporters to advance their interests and to undermine and eventually to destroy Israel. Their loyal supporters are the usual riff-raff, extreme leftist students, anti-Semites and self-hating Jews, who think they will be accepted by their peers by buying into their opinions. That’s why a lot of Jewish liberals get nervous when Israel stands up for its right.

When people take such actions as attacking supermarkets and destroying Israeli goods, or for example when the Palestine Authority goes to the ICC in the Hague with a general political attack against Israel, this also has consequences. In the former case the supermarkets are introducing security to stop the arrogant attempts by a few pro-Palestinian extremists from intimidating their customers and this no doubt will add to the price of all the goods bought. And they are also taking legal action against the boycotters. Also, legislatures are beginning to take action, for example several US states have passed resolutions against boycotts of Israel (the only country in the world being thus targeted). The US Congress has passed a law forbidding the US Government from making any deals with companies that cooperate with the P-BDS movement.

The arguments against the PBS movement are that it is unfair, targeting only Israel, when everyone knows that there are many countries in the world (such as China, Russia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and most of the African countries) that have far worse human rights records. But, the boycotters response would be that they don’t care, they hate Israel, that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel is the only American ally in the ME and deserves to be targeted and so on. Don’t expect them to be fair. Another argument is that Israel is exploiting the poor Palestinians in their own land, the West bank. But, in fact the WB is not Palestinian land, and never has been, and the work that Israeli enterprises give the Palestinian Arabs in those areas is the only work available. If the BDSers manage to close down those factories there, then their chosen people (the Parabs) will indeed starve.

As far as the PA actions at the ICC are concerned, both Israel and the US have warned the PA that taking such action will jeopardize the status quo, that is based on previous bilateral agreements. If for example the PA takes unilateral actions, it breaches articles of the Oslo Accords under which the West Bank was divided into three parts, allowing the formation of the PA itself. Also, all relevant UN resolutions require bilateral negotiations between the two sides. By taking action against Israel without consultation and consideration, the PA has put itself outside these UN resolutions and as a consequence reactions can be expected. For example, Israeli consideration for the existence of the PA could be cancelled and various areas of the West Bank could be reoccupied by the IDF without consideration for the PA (the State of Palestine actually does not exist, there is currently not even a Unity Government between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza).

The US Administration has also warned the PA that US funding to the tune of m$500 pa (the largest single contribution) could be jeopardized if they continue this unilateral approach. The Congress is eager to cut expenses and will readily vote to drastically cut support for the PA, that basically ignores US interests, so far with no reaction from the Obama Administration. Also, many are not aware that the PA is boycotting Israeli goods. In response Israel should prevent all access of Palestinian goods (mainly agricultural) into Israel for transport to Israeli ports for export. Its about time the Palestinians felt the cost of their current strategy to undermine and demonize Israel.